Politics of First Lady’s sickness

The Presidency relapsed to the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua era last week when the news of the sickness and treatment of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan in a Germany hospital broke.

She had left the country unannounced and her media managers never felt it was necessary to tell the people about her whereabout after all, she was not the elected president of the country, hence the need to keep it top secret.

It was the same situation the country found itself in the Yar’Adua era when those around him felt the issue of his sickness be treated as top secret and that explained why he was smuggled back into the country in the dead of the night. Just like the issue of Yar’Adua’s illness, the media was awash with the First Lady’s secret trip with different ailments named for her sudden disappearance from the Presidential Villa. Though her media aide has denied all the speculation, saying she went for a well deserved rest after so much work in the last one month or so.

At the time of compiling the activities that shaped the Presidency last week, the return date of the First Lady was yet to be ascertained.

However, while the constroversy lasted, the Presidency was a beehive of activities. Right from the first working day of the week with President Goodluck Jonathan launching the second phase of YouWin which focused on women. The focus on women, Jonathan noted, was because of their ability to create a multiplier effect of funds besides the fact that it was in line with the United Nations charter.

He also revealed that since the commencement of the programme last July, about 933 of the 1200 beneficiaries of the first batch of YouWin award winners have received the first tranche of about N1.03 billion from the funds, with an assurance that the few yet to receive will do so by the end of next week.

Ogoni leaders meet Jonathan, say no to secession
The Ogoni people, in the course of the week, were at the presidency. They distanced themselves from recent cession declaration by members of a faction of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People pledging to the unity of the country. The people also used the opportunity to make their position known to the presidency on the issue of the $1 million recommended by United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as start-up point for the Ogoni clean-up. They insisted that it must be wholly spent on Ogoni alone.

The insistence, according to Ogoni people, followed Federal Government decision to expand the scope of work of the Ogoni Environment Restoration Agency specifically recommended by UNEP for the Ogoni to include other areas experiencing hydro-carbon pollution.

They were able to extract some assurances from the President who told the Ogoni people that the report will not be diluted when its time to implement it.

The President also assured that government was yet to authorise any firm to take over from Shell the oil wells in Ogoniland, adding that it is not done in consultation of the story.

Military capability and Boko Haram
At a time when many thought that the country’s military would have been overstreched by the activities of the terrorist group, Boko Haram and other sectorial crisis, the Presidency said it was not so. It assured that the involvement of the military in checking social unrest including the Boko Haram insurgency has not in anyway reduced the effectiveness of the Armed Forces in defending the territorial integrity of the nation.

Minister of State, Defence, Erelu Olusola Obada, who took her turn to brief the President on the performance of the ministry viz-a-viz the 2012 budget implementation, disclosed the readiness of the Armed Forces in meeting up with it’s primary responsibility.

The minister who was responding to concerns raised about the high level of involvement of military personnel in handling the scourge of terrorism in the country, said that all arms of the military still had enough troops to be deployed in the case of any eventuality.

N5000 note and the people
The Federal Government may have decided to go ahead with the introduction of the N5000 denomination despite the huge criticism that greeted the idea.

The proposal got the endorsement of the National Economic Management Team (NEMT)- a conclave of some senior government officials and prominent businessmen after the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’ Sanusi Lamido Sanusi cleared all grey areas sorounding proposal which already has the blessing of the President.
The new higher denomination will be introduced along with the new coins of N5, N10 and N20. The policy is expected to take effect in 2013.

Meanwhile, the National Asembly has asked the CBN to apply brakes on the proposal for now.

But NEMT argued that it was the primary responsibility of the CBN to effect changes in the nation’s currency with the approval of the President. The economic team also allayed the fear that the introduction of the note will lead to high rate of inflation, saying that there is no link between inflation and currency denomination.

Besides, the group argued that the introduction of the higher currency will help shore up the value of naira as most people who store money in hard currency would now embrace the high denomination.

Presidency also voted the sum of N65.223billion for the Benin-Sagamu road at the Wednesday weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Jonathan. Nigerians have been calling for the repair of the road whichn has becme dead traps for motorist plying the route.

Jonathan engages civil society groups on constitution
The presidency also did the unexpected within week in review as it gathered together who is who in the country’s civil society organisatons. It was the first Presidential Retreat for Civil Society, Organisations and Professional Association. It was also part of the 52nd Independence Anniversary of the country.The main issue was the Constitutional amendment.
Jonathan in his remark promised to deliver a people oriented constitution that would ensure development of the country.

In this regard, the president also assured that the contribution of the people will be considered in the amendment processes.

He argued that a constitution must originate from the people and bear clear imprint of their contributions.
Jonathan also explained why government was engaging the civil society in the constitution review process, saying that government want to tap onto their vast knowledge of constitutional review borne out of many years of consistent effort to craft a people’s constitution for the country.

President Jonathan also assured that the report of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria , Justice Alfa Belgore Committee which harness all areas of consensus in past constitutional conference will soon be forwarded to National Assembly alongside the proposed bills.

meanwhile, the National Assembly has set a deadline of second quarter of 2013 to conclude work on the amendment of the 1999 constitution. The set date was to ensure that the process does not rolling into electioneering period.